Does partitioning a sub 10GB slow laptop HD = performance decrease?

[ZrO-1]

I would say NTFS, hands-down.

What you could try is make two partitions: 1 partition for just your OS and 1 for your apps and data.
The biggest problem with Win2K and WinXP is that they slow-down over time. Perhaps by keeping the OS all by itself on a separate partition you can prolong the load time you get when you first install the OS. :shrug: And it might help bootup in that there would be less for the OS to look at while loading stuff from the HD.

I don't see how it could hurt...even if it doesn't really help.

[singularity2006]

yah, that's an iffy. NTFS is nice because it is stable, but its stability is as a result of the extreme overhead it has in file writing and reading. Because of this, it happens to be incredibly slow on really slow systems such as this poor laptop I am forced to work with. On most systems these days though, people don't notice anyway.... but @ 4200 RPM... 6GB, .... it shows. -.-" I actually had my system originally setup on NTFS with 3 partitions, 1 OS, 1 Apps, 1 small one for files only. That ended up being slow as !@#$... then FAT32 with the same setup ... it was a bit faster but it was prone to file corruption because of the low security behind FAT32 read and writes. Anyhow, I know that partitioning is very good for most systems these days because it helps alleviate fragmentation issues, but in the case of system performance, would I be better off with a single 6GB partition?

[ZrO-1]

I think the only real option for the HD is to try it and see how it works under both formats.

Here's one other stupid suggetion: Have you checked the ammount of memory shown during the BIOS POST? I remember with my Sony Vaio P2 laptop that I had one of the SODIMMs (that's the module of memory in older laptops) die on me and what happened is the system was running off of the 64MB integrated on the MoBo when I thought it was running off of the 380MB total installed. That caused massive system slow-downs untill I replaced the SODIMM. Thank goodness it was cheap since it's an old technology. (256MB SODIMM was ~ $75.00) Just a thought...

How much memory do you have installed? Maybe you could upgrade it to the maximum the system can use. That would definetly help.

[singularity2006]

heh, I'm too cheap to spend the hundred something per chip to max out the memory. In anycase, I stripped one of the screws on the laptop so I can't get to the memory module anymore. I have 192MB total. In anycase, I've used both formats, NTFS and FAT32, both with multiple partitions. I will try it without the partitions to see how it goes. However, I don't notice the slow down until after I install the service packs and windows updates, which are a requirement ... I do a lot of wireless online stuff that requires the most security I can get. In anycase, I don't want to have to install everything to figure out how the thing lags .... I was hoping someone had some hard line facts and perhaps some performance tables about how hard drives handle under NTFS, FAT32, on small drives with or without partitions. If anyone has that info, that'd be mucho cool. :wavey:

[ZrO-1]

Well, the 192MB memory is definetly why the system is so slow. Win 2K might not be too bad with that; but XP runs like a dog on anything less than 256MB. I know firsthand because I just got done testing out all of the computers in my labs to see how they would run XP, and all the systems with less than 256MB ran like crud. Win 2K was alright though.

If you want to get more system performance you'll have to add more memory (as painfull as it is) so that the hard drive is used less often.

<edit>The systems I tested that were OK in Win 2K even with less than 256MB RAM, all had faster hard drives than your laptop does, so the heavy read/writes didn't have as much of an impact.</edit>

[singularity2006]

i wish i could upgrade... but like i said before, I stripped the cheap little laptop screws so I no longer have access to the memory slot.... :cry:

but oh well, the thinger is so old. 3 year old laptop. Time to save for a new one.

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